Arts and Entertainment 7. 10. 2010


Spellbinding celebration of a ‘Gentle Revolutionary’

Kempe Studio at The Muses
Sunday 26th September 2010

The Rudolf Kempe Society’s most recent concert in the Songs of Apollo series did just what the society sets out to do – presented an outstanding, talented young artists.

The programme, entitled ‘The Gentle Revolutionary’, was enjoyed by a capacity audience of more than fifty music lovers and celebrated the bicentenary of the birth of the great Polish Pianist and composer Frederic Chopin.

Rudolf Kempe’s beautiful Steinway grand took centre stage at the Studio at The Muses on Waterside, Stratford, and the audience was treated to a remarkable performance of the arrangement by Koninek of Chopin's First Piano Concerto in which the entire orchestral part is entrusted to a string quartet.

Young Swedish pianist, Johan Hugosson, was guest soloist - an artist of prodigious talent and someone we will no doubt hear more of in the future. Accompanied with great sensitivity, especially in gradations of dynamics and tempo, by the Bergonzi Quartet – Cordula Kempe and Ivor McGregor, violins, Neil Clarke, viola and Peter Wilson, cello – Hugosson’s performance was a combination of technical brilliance and sensitivity, displaying complete sureness in the demanding passagework and a sweetness of tone in the lyrical moments which ensured that his musicianship became spell-binding. We were fortunate enough to have an encore, a Chopin Nocturne which was quite ethereal.

The remainder of the programme consisted of String Quintets, for which the Bergonzis were joined by violist Robin Del Mar. They began with a realisation by Franz Beyer of a fragment which Mozart left unfinished. Rarely performed since its discovery in the 1990s, it became a most engaging short piece which was lovingly and with visible relish performed by the five string players.

Following the interval, the quintet tackled the mighty G major Quintet Opus 111 by Brahms. Regarded a towering war-horse of the chamber music repertoire, it is at the same time a work that shows Brahms in his last years as a composer of infinite tenderness, even vulnerability - qualities brought out beautifully by the performers, especially in the inner movements which are both in minor keys, the plaintive Adagio and, even more poignant, the fleeting Scherzo. Whilst piano and pianissimo passages were dominating, both movements had their outbursts of drama, and the performers revealed themselves to be up to the challenge of these musical contrasts with a rendering of great power and intensity. When the last movement returned to the major key, its main theme, developing into infectious Hungarian liveliness, became a conclusion of irresistible exuberance to the evening’s great journey.

The next concert, entitled ‘And my soul spread wide its wings’ – taking place again in the Kempe Studio on Waterside - will be a celebration of Robert Schumann in his bicentenary, and will feature the young baritone Ross Ramgobin and pianist Christopher Hopkins, again joined by the Bergonzi Quartet.

Ellie Ellis